Magister Course in Practical Philosophy
The one-year Master’s course in practical philosophy offers an intellectually stimulating and supportive postgraduate environment. You will be taught and supervised by members of faculty who are internationally well connected and actively involved in research.
The one-year Master’s course in practical philosophy offers an intellectually stimulating and supportive postgraduate environment. You will be taught and supervised by members of faculty who are internationally well connected and actively involved in research.
The Master's course practical philosophy includes such fields as metaethics, normative ethics and political philosophy. The course is for students who are well-trained in analytical philosophy and who aim to pursue doctoral studies. It includes a thesis of 30 credits.
Admission
Admission is offered only once a year, for the autumn semester.
Application period
March 15–April 15, 2024
Requirements
Bachelor course in practical philosophy (90 ECTS credits) or equivalent.
Eligibility criteria
If there are more applications than positions, the positions will be allocated based on the grades and the relevance of academic courses, the quality/subject of the bachelor thesis and motivation letter. Please do not forget to upload the motivation letter when you apply!
Information about the motivation letter and the writing sample (58 Kb)
How to apply
Click on the application box in the right hand column.
Roll call and introduction: Monday 2nd of September, 10-12, D700, Philosophical department.
The roll call is mandatory. If you are unable to attend the roll-call, please contact the director of studies to secure your place in the program.
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Course structure
The course lasts two semesters (autumn/spring) for 60 ECTS credits.
In the first semester you will take four modules, one of which is mandatory and the other three are chosen from a range of special topics that vary from term to term. You must pass the examinations of the first semester in order to proceed into the second semester.
Modules offered 2024 (more detailed descriptions are found below)
Current Research Area 1: Philosophy, Politics and Economics
Current Research Area 2: Puzzles of Life and Death
Current Research Area 3: Social ontologyMandatory module: Scientific Method and Research Ethics
Apart from the courses listed, there is also a possibility to pick up a 7,5 credit course offered at the undergraduate level, depending on interests and previous studies.
The second semester consists of your thesis work. You will be allocated a supervisor with expertise in the topic of the thesis. The topic is elective but must be approved by the examiners and must fit the research profile of the members of the faculty.
After completing the course, you are eligible to apply for a PhD position. For more information about PhD admissions, please visit the website for PhD programmes.Current Research Area 1 (HT24): Philosophy, Politics and Economics
Teacher: Erik AngnerThis course provides an introduction to the interdisciplinary field of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE). PPE is concerned with exploring the intersections between these three disciplines and how they can inform one another. This course will examine key concepts and debates in each of the three fields, as well as the ways in which they overlap and interact. In the philosophy component of the course, we will study topics such as ethics, political philosophy, and epistemology. We will explore questions such as: What is justice? What is the role of the state in society? How do we acquire knowledge?
Throughout the course, we will also examine case studies and examples that illustrate the intersection of philosophy, politics, and economics. We will consider the practical implications of these interdisciplinary insights for real-world problems and issues.
By the end of the course, students will have a deeper understanding of the connections between philosophy, politics, and economics, as well as the skills to analyze and evaluate these connections in a variety of contexts.Current Research Area 2: Puzzles of Life and Death
Teacher: Greg BognarThis course examines a series of interrelated puzzles in applied ethics concerning life and death. We discuss questions about creating people, the badness of death, human extinction, and killing the innocent, among other issues. We take a hands-on, "workshop" approach, developing and evaluating arguments and exploring different philosophical positions through continuous discussion and frequent written assignments. By the end of the course, students will be familiar with some of the major issues and theories in applied ethics and gain substantial experience in philosophical argumentation and short-form writing.
Current Research Area 3: Social ontology
Teacher: Johan Brännmark and Åsa BurmanSocial ontology is a rapidly growing field within analytic philosophy. Early contributions in the late 1980s and early 1990s tended to focus mainly on either collective action theory or the nature of social facts, often with an emphasis on collective intentionality as a key phenomenon. But in more recent years, the field has broadened, bringing in new perspectives from metaphysics, philosophy of science, and political theory, with important work being done on how to understand social kinds, social norms, and social structures, as well as how these can enable or constrain people’s agency and thought. While social norms can be, and often are, immensely helpful in coordinating our actions and thereby contributing to collective benefits, they can also have a dark side, serving as the basis of oppression and domination.
This course offers a critical discussion of new perspectives in social ontology on the notions of norms, power, and social normativity. More specifically, it looks into recent nonideal approaches to social norms and social normativity. While more traditional forms of social ontology often model social phenomena by introducing simplifying assumptions which abstract from many of the differences that exist between members of any actual society, nonideal social ontology eschews such simplifications, working with more complex and realistic examples in order to facilitate theorizing that can be helpful in addressing existing social injustices and oppressive social norms, especially ones pertaining to social categories like gender, race, and class. At the end of the course, students will be familiar with the current philosophical debate on these matters, and able to engage reflectively with key points in it.Assessment
The student must pass the examinations of the first semester in order to proceed to the second semester. Work on the thesis (30 credits) runs for both semesters. The topic is elective but must be approved by the convenor and must fit the research profile of the members of the faculty. A supervisor will be allocated to the student, based on her or his project description. The final grade of the entire course is determined by the grade of the thesis. The exam of the thesis part consists in the thesis itself, a defence of it at a seminar, and an opposition on another student’s thesis at a seminar. We recommend that you study the grading criteria and the guidelines for the thesis.
Note that the demands for the Master’s thesis are higher than for a Bachelor’s thesis, with respect to volume, content, and degree of independence in the writing process. This is reflected in the grading criteria.
There is a strong expectation that the thesis be completed during the second term of the one-year master (magister) course. If needed, supervision can be extended to the term following the one in which the student begins his or her supervised work. Students who do not finish the thesis within these two terms have no right to extended supervision, but they have a right to submit a thesis and have it graded.
Grading criteria for Master’s thesis -
Schedule
The schedule will be available no later than one month before the start of the course. We do not recommend print-outs as changes can occur. At the start of the course, your department will advise where you can find your schedule during the course. -
Course reports
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